Job Discussion Forums

[cangringo]

Whoohoo another degree debate. I love these. Ok well as I now officially have an FM3, I can say that it is possible to get a job and get paid well at that job without a degree. That doesn't settle the debate of course but from the posts I've seen here, I could have assumed that it wasn't possible to make good money yet.

OH and to this...

[dixie]

[Justin Trullinger]

I have always felt that a "real" job is defined as one you don't like...

I've had a couple, and am not going to again!


Best,
Justin

[MO39]

[tedkarma]

[soapdodger]

I'm not sure what you mean by career options, which I would say are take it or leave it but the "career structure" in EFL is not much to write home about. The rungs on the tiny wee stepladder are (a) teacher (b) something with "director" in the title (c) school owner. Read: (a) get sh*fted (b) get sh*fted harder with an option to sh*ft (c) sh*ft full-scale. No need for glass ceilings here. Before any pedants reach for the keyboard, yes, there are other things available but not to the vast majority.

Real jobs...yes, what is a real job? I've been in the offices of hundreds of large companies, government organisations and the like through EFL and heard the gripes and seen the workloads and hours of loads of people and in most cases felt "Rather you than me". As I've said somewhere else on this board, everything comes at a price, which is an increasingly hard concept for people to understand as the environment we live in tells us everyone is entitled to be a celebrity or enormously wealthy. What perhaps saddens me most is that in so-called developed countries, the majority of people work themselves into an early grave, or so much that their kids don't know who they are, simply in order to buy what is really expensive junk. Each to their own.

Having a good life in EFL is possible. Some elements to the formula for happiness are:

Don't keep all your eggs in one basket...relying on one school is a no-no. If you fall out with them, or vice versa, or if they go bust or lose clients, you'll be left with a whole lot of nothing.

Work for yourself if you can. There are lots of ways to advertise and they are not all expensive.

Don't sell yourself short. It won't benefit you, or anyone else. One reason why there are countless crap schools is because some people are daft enough to accept what they pay. In fact, if someone with a bit of time and computer knowledge could set up an international index of fair going rates and there was enough solidarity in refusing anything less, there might be an improvement....and pigs can fly ( they've got helicopters!).

Get real about what you can make. The next step from DIY is starting a school. Do the sums very carefully indeed before you do, or you might find yourself doing a hell of alot more for a hell of alot less. Don't think Christmas has come early because you get a major contract, the average life of a contract with a school where there is any competition at all is 2 years. Nothing lasts forever.

And of course there's alot more, but here isn't the place for it.

[tedkarma]

[cangringo]

nice post soapdodger

[Phil_K]

I agree, but I'm not sure about the "Sh*ft full-scale bit" (well not in my case anyway).

Basically, I only got into this teaching lark 'cos arriving in Mexico with no Spanish, it was about all I could do. I only started my own school 'cos I have no career to speak of, and no degree. Seemed logical to use what I had learned to start making some serious money at last.

[soapdodger]

And long may you thrive Phil ! An honest man, I like that.

[merlin]

It's not so much about honesty as it is about outlook. I always tell my students to look at what they CAN do, not what they can't do.

Of course the whole TEFL and degrees thing just goes back to the same issue: If you look at what you can't do or look at how TEFL won't benefit you, well, that's all you'll find. Other people look at it as "Well, I can speak English and run a business so why not start up a school?" They look at what they can do and make something out of that.

Here are a few things I've done with TEFL that other people have said once ar twice isn't possible:
- Made enough money in the Czech Republic to support a family.
- Made over $3,000 US a month teaching TEFL in the US
- Used my TEFL experience to leverage myself into entry level positions in two different new careers back in the US, and now I have to choose which one I want to follow, so rather than having no options I have too many choices after my "dead end job in TEFL".

If you start a thing looking to fail, you'll find failure, that's for sure. If you look for opportunities you may not find them easily, but you can find them.

Back to degrees - if you just look at degrees as something that can't be used, of course that's all you'll ever prove your degree to be - a worthless piece of paper. But if you look for ways to use your degree for something, then sooner or later it will be the little extra that places you in front of the pack.

[spiral78]

Hey, Merlin, can I just ask for clarification on the point about making enough in the Czech Rep to support a family? Reason: there is a current poster who's been asking about this.

I think it's POSSIBLE to support a family in the Czech Rep on a teacher's salary -IF you have the background and connections in the country to land some of those relatively rare situations that would allow one to do this.

But, would you agree that coming to the country without connections or experience HERE would make this pretty difficult for a year or two - barring working a million hours weekly and living in some ubytovani with shared toilet or something?

By the way, I, too, am well-paid in North America. But, again, it's for people (like us - hope I'm not presuming too far!!) who've paid some dues.

[merlin]

I think it's a matter of not being too extreme in one's expectations. I would neither want to discourage a person nor encourage them too much. If you encourage people they often believe that everything will be easy. I didn't say it would be easy to support a family - just that it's possible. It does involve a lot of teaching hours and being gone from early morning to late at night to get those extras like the family car, family holidays, christmas gifts and all the things that go with various holidays and weekend activities.

And it isn't easy to make it in the US, either. Even less so in Hawaii. But it is possible.

You have ups and downs, highs and lows opportunities and setbacks wherever you go. My point is that the one thing that remains constant is you.

This is easy for people in Czech to understand - people who did well in communism are still able to do well in capitalism and people who were loosers in communism are still drunken loosers 20 years later. In the teaching community you have people who wander from country to country trying to fine the next gold rush then getting bitter that they were "tricked" or "misled" by schools or people on this board, while on the other hand you ahve people who seem to always have good experiences no matter which country they land in and how difficlut it is to make money there.

So no, I wouldn't tell a penniless single mother with 5 children to try her luck in Czech. You do need money to settle in and live off of until you get the amount of work that you want.
But you don't necessarily need connections before you go, either.

This might just be the most important lesson I've learned from 15 years of teaching English abroad.